You’ll Spend $500 on Dinners and Drinks During the Holidays

Just when your budget was about to bust after buying toys, necklaces, and flat screens this month, prepare to fully blow it up with fancy appetizers and booze. We'll put $537 toward socializing during the holidays. And you'll never guess which seasonal drink is the most popular.

The average person spends $241 every month on drinks, dinners out, and parties, and that more than doubles during the holidays to $537. Woohoo! We might as well be happy about it. There are more parties to hit during December than other months, and it seems to be a what-the-heck month when it's easy to overindulge in the name of holiday cheer. Expensive holiday cheer.

A survey by OnePoll on behalf of the smart supplement company Morning Recovery asked for favorite holiday drinks and discovered that eggnog is preferred by most people. Do you love it? I stock eggnog every year for my dad, who spikes his with brandy. I used to drink that with crushed ice, and then I read the eggnog label and figured out that I could have a piece of cake for the same amount of calories and I went for the cake instead.

Alcohol consumption goes up 100 percent during the holidays. Wow! If the average person has 4 drinks during a normal week, the survey says that goes up to 8 during the holidays. And this is what we're drinking.

What is Glogg? It's kind of like the English Mulled wine only Glogg is the Swedish version, served warm with spices. Wassail is hot mulled cider. And all of it together will set you back $537 apparently.

Where do you go for holiday drinks? Cork? Applebee's? Chili's? Black Pearl? Rose City Draft House? Old Chicago? We might see you there this weekend.